


The Oldest Smile

by kye_16



Category: A Matter of Life and Death (Webcomic), AMOLAD
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 20:36:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7005436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kye_16/pseuds/kye_16
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Picked up a new webcomic recently (called A Matter of Life and Death, as the tags may imply). It's M/M, and is about characters and story and is not (yet?) smutty at all. Weird, right? But also great. YOU SHOULD DEF CHECK IT OUT: https://tapastic.com/episode/174809</p><p>Anyway, it has moved my cold, shrivelled heart, and so I present you with a few hundred words of plotless fluff. :) Life and Death taking in some of the cuter aspects of Creation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Oldest Smile

                He has lived since the middle realm was new and naked, turning slowly under the gaze of its young sun. The very embodiment of wisdom is a close friend, speaking understanding in his ear for the the past few hundreds of billions of years. Life was not born yesterday.

                Of course, it's possible his stomach is a less learned part of him, for the way it tightens and hops into his chest. And his toes, the way they twitch and wiggle and threaten to run off his feet. And his cheeks -- no, his cheeks, even THEY must have learned something in all this time, though he can feel the traitors flushing pink as he considers it.

                Many have smiled at him, near him, through him. Surely Death's smile is not so different from the infinite number he has seen. Grins wide and small and tight and loud and wet and shy and full of heart, lies and truths and the simplest meanings written on the face --

                And yet it is here he threatens to be undone. Warm as amber, honey as those quiet words that slip from his tongue, Death casts his eyes up and catches Life's. The quirk at the corners of his mouth are subtle but sincere. Life's own mouth forgets its basic function, twisting into what must surely be some sort of grimace as he attempts to speak and smile and choke on his tongue all at once. Death's smile gets a little bigger. It grows a tiny laugh. Those perfect eyes return to the young stoats frolicking just ahead of them, unaware. Long, tapered fingers absently run through the grass.

                Unfair, surely, that Death Incarnate should be so gentle! So soft-spoken and even-tempered, so understanding. So kind. He, too, is old as the middle realm, hands following Life's touch through the millennia in exercise of his duty. It chafes at Life, but as he watches the long god unfold himself to standing, he thinks perhaps that this, too, is as it should be. After all, who better to hold the power required for said duty than a being so soft, so good.

                That smile is on him again, brighter than the sun. His own mouth elects to return it without his input, apparently, and he thinks this mouth may be defective as it now seems intent on splitting his face. Death casts his eyes down, shy, and Life's stomach slides back into place as he melts inside. Life is loud, Life is gregarious, Life is bright and passionate and quick to temper, and he finds it oh-so-poetic that it is in the shadow of Death that he feels the first tiny bloom of peace.  


End file.
